Hard to get. Still doesn't make clear which apps work well on tablets.

Bottom Line

Android 5.0 is a great-looking update with many new features. Just pay attention to which manufacturers have promised upgrades.

It's good to get a style refresher every five years or so. I just got a new pair of glasses, and everybody's saying they're changing my look. Six years into Android's lifespan, it's getting a major facelift as well. Android 5.0 Lollipop brings a new, flatter look, better notifications, redesigned core apps, and performance improvements that address some important missing app categories on Android devices.

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I'd love to say Lollipop is a "must upgrade," except you don't have a choice: You have to wait to find out if your device maker and carrier will deign to allow you to upgrade. That's always been Android's greatest weakness, and it's why 40 percent of Android users are on versions two years old or older. But it's a big enough deal that you should seek out Lollipop where you can find it.

Material DesignThe biggest visible change in Android 5.0 is Material Design, a new design language with flatter icons, simpler shapes, and bolder bars of color. This is a broad trend in the industry right now; Apple picked up on it last year with iOS 7.

Everything is cleaner, slightly rounder, and most notably flatter than it used to be. The rounding of corners helps dispel some of Android's lingering 'techie' feel and give the OS a slightly cuddlier, more consumer-friendly look. The action buttons at the bottom of the screen have been simplified down to basic shapes. In the app tray, transparency has been discarded for a basic white background. The multitasking view is now a rotating cascade of Google Now-like cards—and if you have multiple documents open in an app, they appear as separate cards.Some of Google's most critical apps have changed, as well. Major built-in apps now have themed, colored headers. Contacts is blue. Calendar is white. Gmail is red.

Maps isn't color-coded, but has flattened buttons. The new Chrome 39 has "faster network performance" and various bug fixes, but otherwise seems a lot like the previous Chrome 38. All of the component apps, including the new Maps and Calendar, are available for Android 4.4 as well.

Third party apps mostly aren't yet on board, but Lollipop gives them the APIs to make it work. As Material Design spreads throughout the Android interface, it'll be like a breath of fresh air.

Features and Built-in AppsLollipop changes some major consumer-facing features in Android, too. The immediate biggest deal is notifications. You'll now get full, detailed notifications on your lock screen, as well as more flexible, actionable notifications popping down over your other actions. I really like the division of notifications into priority and non-priority, which can have separate alert volumes and display settings; you can set each of your apps to have priority, non-priority, or blocked notifications.

Google has finally gotten rid of the confusingly separate Gmail and Email apps. The main app now supports Google accounts, POP/IMAP for services like Yahoo and AOL, and Exchange. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The app couldn't "verify credentials" with two different iCloud accounts, and when I tried to add an Exchange account, it wanted a corporate-provided security key on my device. So you'll probably still be turning to the many available third-party email apps for Exchange support; if you use iCloud, get an iPhone.

The main Gmail index screen is a bit more spacious and curvaceous, trading in square icons for circles and adding little images to the mailbox sidebar. Because of the colored header, the action icons at the screen stand out a bit more.

The calendar has also been extensively redesigned, but in a way that I find more aesthetic than functional. The agenda view is the boldest change: big blocks of color with the photos of people who invited you to meetings, smoothly forming and reforming between an agenda and a more traditional day calendar when you tap the date. It's also interrupted by cute, seasonally appropriate graphics. The week view has been replaced with a five-day view (which is great, if you don't work weekends), and you can pop down a mini-monthly calendar at any time.

Android tablets as of 4.4 supported multiple users, but now phones do, too, along with a Guest mode that can only use built-in apps with default settings. You can even restrict the Guest from making phone calls. Different users can have different sets of apps, but only one copy of each app is stored on the phone.

Battery management also appears to have been enhanced. All Android devices now get the sort of "ultra power saving mode" that Samsung devices have had for a while, which turns off background tasks when you're running low on juice. The OS also gives you predictions for how long you'll need to go before you recharge—and when you're recharging, it tries to predict how long it'll take to fill your tank.

Otherwise, this is Android. From a consumer perspective, the most important differentiator about Android is its extreme customizability. Yes, you can just let icons march across your home screen and pretend you have an iPhone. But Android really comes alive when you install custom widgets that bring the information you really want to your fingertips. I tend to put my calendar, a search box, and a single-click way to text my wife on my home screen, for instance.

Coming off a few months using an iPhone, I'm startled by how excellent Google's voice dictation and search is. In terms of accuracy and ability to get information from the Web, Google simply destroys both Siri and Cortana. With Siri, the issue was primarily voice recognition accuracy: While Siri performed Web searches very well, it heard my requests wrong far too often. With Cortana, the problem is that it uses Bing.Google's voice commands do fall short in one major area, though. Siri is much better at getting other built-in apps to do things—for instance, to play specific songs through the music player. This is because of the superior integration across Apple's on-device apps.

About the Author

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 13 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, hosts our One Cool Thing daily Web show, and writes opinions on tech and society.
Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer. Other than ... See Full Bio

Google Android 5.0 Lollipop

Google Android 5.0 Lollipop

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